Brother Joe May's studio recordings for Specialty, the ones that made him the most popular male soloist of gospel's Golden Age, tended to be rhythmic. To May and those who knew his music best, however, the Mississippi-born singer's true forte was at slower tempos in front of live audiences, where he could stretch out and let the spirit guide his awesome pipes, a cross between those of Enrico Caruso and Big Joe Turner, to heights of galvanizing passion. These previously unissued live recordings capture the Thunderbolt of the Middle West at the peak of his powers and in the company of such contemporaries as daughter Annette May, the Sallie Martin Singers, Prof. J. Earle Hines, and members of Dorothy Love Coates and the Original Gospel Harmonettes and the Swan Silvertones.